A new semen test could help better-detect prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is extremely common in men, and leads to many fatalities, but it can be tricky to detect, Medical News Today reported.
Researchers looked at the seminal fluids of 60 men they could use microRNAs to make "surprisingly accurate" prostate cancer diagnoses.
Today's PSA (prostate specific antigen) tests can detect abnormalities easily, but it not particularly specific for prostate cancer. Conditions such as prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and prostatitis can appear on these tests.
These false positives can lead to scores of unnecessary procedures such as biopsies.
"Biomarkers that can accurately detect prostate cancer at an early stage and identify aggressive tumors are urgently needed to improve patient care," lead author Dr. Luke Selth, a Young Investigator of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, said in the news release.
When the researchers examined the seminal fluid they found microRNAs known to be associated with prostate cancer. MicroRNAs are "small non-coding molecules that are important for controlling gene expression," Medical News Today reported.
They also found that some microRNAs were more accurate than a common PSA test in detecting whether or not the patients had cancer.
They found a microRNA called miR-200b could help differentiate between men with low-grade and high-grade tumors.
"This is important," Dr. Selth told Medical News Today, "because, as a potential prognostic tool, it will help to indicate the urgency and type of treatment required."
In the past the researchers have shown that microRNAs can predict which men will experience recurrence after their tumor has been surgically removed.
"[We are] excited by the potential clinical application of microRNAs in a range of body fluids," Seith said, Medical News Today reported.
The researchers plan to further back up their findings by testing the method on a larger group of patients in the future.
